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Friday, February 4, 2011

Snow Day Activities

After all of the crazy winter weather this country is having (is there a state that does NOT have snow?), I figured a post about getting cabin fever was long overdue!

Besides the old standby activities for winter weather: building snowmen, sledding, snowball fights, roasting s'mores, baking goodies, what else is there to do? Whatever they did before TV, video games and Apple products! If you and your kids are climbing the walls, here are a few different activities you can do at home when it's too dangerous to get out there and drive. I got some of these ideas from my friends, and family while others are some that I've grown to love doing over the years!

For babies, toddlers and preschoolers:

1. Set up your own sensory table: Get a rubbermaid container and fill with water or sand and have them move their toys around in it. Just make sure they don't eat the sand if they are babies.

2. A good idea for babies too is to set them in their highchair so they are contained and put a variety of food supplies on it to play with: Pudding, cool whip, any mushy food like bananas, avocado, etc. and let them be little artists

3. Make your own bubbles or homemade play dough! Half the fun is making it. As long as you have cream of tartar on hand for the play dough, it's so easy to make.

4. Boardgames such as Candyland, Chutes and Ladders are fun ways to have the whole family engage in an activity.

5. Block activity building for families to build something together like a Castle, a town or racetrack

6. Make snowflakes out of paper. Remember doing this in school?

7. Decorate valentines and make heart shapes out of construction paper and decorate with glitter and glue

9. Have them put on a puppet show and if you don't have any puppets make some! Just get some white old tube socks and paint them or decorate with markers and glue.

10. Take your child outside with a box of water colors, or larger bottles of tempra paint and some brushes. Show them how to pack snow into a smooth surface, and let them paint. It is a different experience from painting on paper and mistakes are easily "erased" – just pile fresh snow on top.

11. Have a dance party! Just dim the lights, get out some fun dance CD's and let your little ones dance. For babies, my child loves to dance in my arms or just loves to giggle hysterically when I dance in front of her (maybe she is laughing at my bad dance moves:).

School aged kids, teens: School age kids will enjoy some of the activities above too

1. Boardgames for the whole family such as LIFE, Jenga, checkers, chess, Clue, and Apples to Apples.

2. Building a card house

4. Make a scavenger hunt for them with odds and ends around the house. Or have the kids make one for each other

5. Besides having fun baking cookies, you can have them make pretzel creations by lining up stick pretzels and using peanut butter as glue

6. Make snow cream. I have never done this myself but have heard a lot of kids love this stuff!

7. Create your own fort indoors with cardboard boxes

8. Design your own crossword puzzles and mazes. This will keep them occupied for hours!

Adults:

1. I know it's pretty obvious but what better time to start spring cleaning, organize your kitchen, closet and garage, finances, etc. Wow, never thought you'd have the free time huh?

2. Crank out all the On Demand TV you've been wanting to get caught up on, Dexter, Mad Men and old Lost episodes and then see the link above to make origami out of netflix wrappers. Yes you heard me correctly, there is a website dedicated to this!

3. Start cooking! All of those cookbooks that you've collected, or recipes you've cut out and never made. Now is the time you can pull them out and finally make that coq au vin, a souffle or some other ridiculously long and complicated recipe.

4. Have your own spa day with homemade masks, mani and pedis. You can do this with your little girls too.

I know there are endless possibilities, so hopefully this is a start. What are your favorite snow day activities?